The Levelling Up Fund is designed to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK. The Government fund aims to support town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets.
Rutland County Council and Melton Borough Council have been awarded national Levelling Up Funding (LUF) to invest in their two areas.
The joint bid asked for £23m investment from the Government to build new medical research and sustainable transport facilities in Oakham, as well as the creation of new digital exhibits at Rutland County Museum.
In Melton, the funding will be used to support the development the town’s Stockyard site and theatre. Read more about Melton’s Levelling Up projects.
Rutland’s Levelling Up projects
Our Levelling up projects focus on three key areas that can help to grow and support our local economy here in Rutland:
- Health innovation
- Sustainable travel
- Visitor Economy
Health Innovation
Rutland will be home to a new £3.5m, 1000m2 medical research and innovation facility. This will provide lab and light assembly space for clinical trials linked to the development of new medical technology.
The facility would also serve as a professional development centre for clinicians working in the area, as well as a training base for medical students and nurses. The training of health professionals in a rural county will help to address skills shortages that are contributing to health inequalities in areas like Rutland.
The facility will also be a community health-related hub, housing a café, health trainers and care workers.
Sustainable travel
Funding will be used to create a new £6.5m, 500m2 sustainable travel hub. The hub will be supported by a Demand Responsive Transport system, based on Rutland County Council’s Bus Service Investment Plan, and extended to cover the Melton area.
The travel hub will focus on two routes, which have been developed using evidence and analysis of Rutland’s transport network, with some further refinement needed. This service will help people to access work, learning and services more easily across the two market towns of Oakham and Melton.
Visitor Economy
Rutland will use LUF funding for a £2m investment to create of a mobile, digital visitor experience to view two of our heritage treasures - the large Ichthyosaur discovered at Rutland Water and the remains of a 4th Century Roman Villa with mosaic floor. Neither of these heritage assets can be displayed easily to the public. Levelling Up Funding will all the council to create virtual models, storage and touring facilities, so that these incredible finds can be shown.
Rutland County Museum and Oakham Castle welcome around 60,000 visitors a year, of which approximately 20,000 visit the Museum. The Museum also has a full schools programme to support the education of local children.
Levelling Up - Link Document - LUF bid prospectus
Levelling Up - Accordian - Levelling Up FAQs
Frequently asked questions
What is the Levelling Up Fund?
How much money have Rutland and Melton been awarded?
Rutland and Melton have been allocated the full amount of £22.95 million for their joint Levelling Up bid. Rutland will receive around £12 million of the allocation to deliver the projects in our area.
How will the Levelling Up funding be spent?
We've produced a summary document (Levelling up proposition for Rutland and Melton) that explains how the £22.95 million funding will be allocated between each of the projects proposed in the bid. You can view and download the prospectus on this page.
How were Rutland’s Levelling Up projects chosen?
Under the strict terms of the Levelling Up programme, we could only apply for money that would be used to support viable projects around transport, regeneration and culture. We took an evidence-led approach and submitted bids for projects that are tailored to these three investment themes and build on Rutland’s current strengths.
Our bid was also informed by public feedback gathering through the Future Rutland Conversation, which clearly highlighted health infrastructure, sustainable transport and the vibrancy of our town centres as being important to residents.
Because of this approach, Rutland and Melton were one of only 111 successful bids out of a total of 529 from across the country.
When will these projects be finished?
Having submitted our bid and secured the funding, we're now in the process of developing detailed delivery plans to make our proposals a reality. We will have indicative timescales for completing each of the various projects very soon.
Levelling Up - Text - External links